Author: Site Staff

Event: HR.com Employers of Excellence 2006 Conference
Date: October 24-27, 2006, Red Rock Casino Resort, Las Vegas

What: Canada-based HR.com says that “the conference inspires, educates and motivates through a unique blend of world-class keynote speakers, educational workshops, peer-to-peer networking, procurement services solutions and engaging debate and discussion on today’s hottest HR challenges and trends.”

Conference info: For more information about the HR.com Employers of Excellence conference, go to www.hr.com.

Conference Notes, Day 4–Friday October 27, 2006

Too much conference, too far from the glitz? After four days in Vegas without losing my shirt, here are some thoughts and observations on HR.com’s Employers of Excellence conference:

Four days is a lot of conference. SHRM’s national conference is also four days long, but it draws 15,000 to 16,000 attendees. HR.com claimed 400 attendees, but my best guess is that they probably had no more than 350 or so. Why does the number of days matter? Well, with everyone so busy, a tightly packed, fast-paced conference can give participants a lot more bang for their buck, keep energy levels high and make for more better keynotes and breakout sessions with a larger numbers of highly engaged participants. The Conference Board, which puts on the best events in a day-and-a-half format, has it down pat. One day less would have made this a much more energetic conference.

How do I get to the Strip? The Red Rock Casino Resort is beautiful, but it is way out in Summerlin, a good 20-minute drive from the Las Vegas Strip. That kept people away from temptation and focused them on the conference, but I heard lots of comments from attendees who wished they had easier access to some of the more famous Vegas hotels and casinos.

News at HR.com about HR.com: CEO Debbie McGrath used the Las Vegas conference to announce that HR.com would be launching a new HR job board in the first week of November. She also said that HR.com would be launching HR Marketplace, an eBay-style system where people could bid on HR products and services. McGrath didn’t give a timetable for this except to say that it would be launched “soon.” And there’s a beta version up now. Finally, she talked about an increased focus on community within the HR.com Web site, with more contributed content and the ability for users to build personal “My Space”-like pages. McGrath gave few details on how this might work or when it would be launched, but she touted it as a major shift in the company’s business model. Stay tuned.

Morning keynote, Day 4: Steven Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics, spoke on “Redefining How We View the Modern World.” Levitt, an economist and University of Chicago professor, gave an old-school presentation: no slides, no PowerPoint; just him telling interesting, funny stories to illustrate his points. It’s difficult to convey his details and color, but the basic theme was this: Simple arguments are the most convincing, yet in business, people rely on complicated models and spreadsheets that frequently miss the point and don’t make the case as effectively.

Power problems: The afternoon keynote was actually a panel, “Changing Leadership Behavior,” with executive coach Marshall Goldsmith and three executives he has worked with: George Borst, CEO of Toyota Financial Services; author and consultant Frances Hesselbein, former CEO of the Girl Scouts of America; and Rudolf Messinger, chief of the United Nations Children’s Fund. It could have been a good session, but halfway through it, the speakers and audience had to move to another room because a worker outside the hotel hit a power cable with a backhoe, knocking out power to the casino and limiting electricity in the hotel and conference center. Without a sound system, it made for a disjointed presentation that was hard to hear.

Final keynote, Day 4: In attendance for Dave Ulrich’s talk, “The HR Value Proposition and the Journey Ahead,” was an audience that had dwindled to no more than 75. It was Friday on Day 4 of the conference, after all. Ulrich, who is about as close as HR gets to having its own strategy rock star, had an earlier breakout Q&A session that was more personal and let him have a lot more interaction with the audience. Still, it begs the question: How did a great draw like Ulrich get stuck with the last spot on the last day of the program when most of the attendees had already gone home? I’ve found that Ulrich always has great things to say. He deserved a more prominent spot in the program. As he himself said, tongue firmly in cheek, “I LOVE being the last speaker at the conference.”
–JH

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Conference notes: Day 3—Thursday, October 26, 2006

Morning keynote, Day 3: Former New York Times reporter Tony Schwartz kicked off the third day of the conference with a very interesting presentation on “Energizing Your Workforce (The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working—The Science of Sustainable High Performance).” Schwartz, who is currently president and CEO of the Energy Project, made the case that to sustain your performance, you must balance energy expenditure with intermittent energy renewal.

Schwartz focused on the personal things managers can do to increase their energy and performance, so this was more of an individually oriented presentation than most of the other keynotes and breakout sessions at this conference. But he also offered up this sobering stat that ripples through the entire workforce: Last year, workers gave back $17 billion to employers in unused vacation time. And, “employers lost out in the bargain,” he said.

His solution: We all need systemic training to renew our energy. He’s written a book about this with Jim Loehr (The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Time Not Energy) that explains all the ways you can do this, but his bottom line is that everyone needs to find systems to renew their energy. When you do, “you get done more done in less time with a higher level of energy and a better quality of time.”

Kiss your performance reviews goodbye: Here’s a session that grabbed a lot of people: “We Abolished Performance Appraisals—Now What Do We Do?” Ken Barry, former senior vice president for human resources at Move.com, gave this provocative presentation to a packed room of people who seemed sick of their current performance review process. Barry’s answer? Managers need to ditch the regular performance reviews and instead build a “conversational organization.” This is not something that tech companies selling performance management systems will be happy to hear, but Barry’s take is that no one on either side of the process is happy with the way it currently works.

Having an ongoing dialogue instead of a formalized review process, he said, helps both managers and workers to be more productive and effective, and get specific, timely feedback. One note for those tech companies with their performance management systems: My quick survey didn’t find a single HR person at this session who was currently using an automated performance appraisal system. Maybe that’s another answer to Barry’s provocative question.

Afternoon keynote, Day 3: Attendees got a break today—only one afternoon keynote speaker. It will be a short-lived break, but author and consultant Ram Charan was the beneficiary of the single-speaker format. This meant he got a full 90 minutes to make his pitch, and Charan, who is a staple of the business speaker circuit, used it wisely to really engage the audience. His keynote on “The CEO’s Perspective” focused on what CEOs are looking for from their HR leaders. His answer:

• That they think of themselves as a leader, no matter what their function or background.
• That they learn the business and talk in business terms, not HR jargon.
• That they link the needs of the business with the HR function.
• That they have a solid succession plan for the board of directors.
• That they put systems into place that clearly link compensation to performance.
• That they make sure they have the right people in the right job throughout the organization.
• That they fix the HR organization and build it for the 21st century.
• That they clearly add strategic value to the organization.

—John Hollon

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Conference notes: Day 2—Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Team work: Patrick Lencioni, founder and president of the Table Group and author of management books such as The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and Death by Meeting, kicked off Day 2 with a near two-hour keynote. If you know anything about Lencioni, this is not a bad thing. I’ve heard him before at the World Business Forum and he is both smart and entertaining. That’s a tough combination to beat and definitely someone to start a conference day.

Like most management speakers, Lencioni imparts wisdom in lists, including the five dysfunctions of a team:

Absence of trust: The fear of being vulnerable with team members prevents the building of trust within the team.

Fear of conflict: The desire to preserve artificial harmony stifles the occurrence of productive, ideological conflict.

Lack of commitment: The lack of clarity and/or the fear of being wrong prevents team members from making decisions in a timely and definitive way.

Avoidance of accountability: The need to avoid interpersonal discomfort prevents team members from holding one another accountable for their behaviors.

Inattention to results: The desire for individual credit erodes the focus on collective success.

As engaging as Lencioni is, if you have heard him once, you probably would be better off getting some of his books than sitting through another one of his presentations.

Math lessons: Jeff Higgins, vice president for compensation and benefits at the Irvine Co. in California, led a breakout session on using human capital analytics to make decisions and better manage the workforce.

His point was that HR people need to embrace numbers and analytics and use turnover, recruiting and cost figures over multiple years to better make their case to C-suite executives. He offered these statistics to make his case:

• Turnover in all industries has increased steadily at about half a percent per year since 1990, to a mean of more than 21 percent in 2004.
• The typical U.S. company spends nearly 50 times more to recruit a $100,000 professional than it will invest in annual training after that person comes on board.
• Employee costs are a typical company’s single largest expense, yet most companies don’t even know how many employees they have.

The trouble with late-afternoon keynotes: As was the case on the first day, the second day ended with two keynote speeches. They were tougher to get through after a full day of sessions and presentations. The first was given by Beverly Kaye, author of books including Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em: Getting Good People to Stay. Kaye, founder and CEO of Career Systems International, had led an earlier roundtable session, and frankly, she had more time at the breakout to really make her case for why companies need to work harder to retain and develop talent. Her keynote, at 40 minutes, was just too short to do justice to her topic.

As tough as it was for Kaye, it was even tougher for the second afternoon keynote speaker, Libby Sartain, chief people officer at Yahoo.

Sartain was in the unenviable position of being the only thing between the attendees and getting to dinner and the casino. Her topic, “Eight Essentials to Emotionally Connect Your Employees to Your Business,” is a good one, and she made a good case for linking people to their company’s brand. Unfortunately, a lot of attendees bailed out and missed what she had to say. There’s a lesson here for conference attendees and sponsors alike: Too many speakers, especially late in the day, may be too much of a good thing.

—John Hollon

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Conference Notes, Day 1—Tuesday, October 24, 2006

First day, first thoughts: This is a long conference spread across four days with 12 keynote speakers, 50 breakout workshops, 51 sponsors and, by the sponsor’s estimate, more than 400 attendees. That’s a lot to digest, even without the siren song of Vegas in your ears.

Fortunately, the Employers of Excellence conference is being held at the new Red Rock Casino Resort Spa on the east side of the city, well away from the Strip. It’s a beautiful venue, and although it does have the obligatory casino, its somewhat remote location limits the ability of conference-goers to run for the neon of the Strip when they burn out on speakers. Still, it remains to be seen how disciplined the attendees will be.

Twin keynotes: Despite the late-afternoon start, there were two keynote speakers.

First up was Lance Secretan, a management consultant and author of 13 books including Inspire: What Great Leaders Do.

Secretan’s talked about his CASTLE principles, a mnemonic device for courage, authenticity, service, truthfulness, love and effectiveness. Secretan’s “recipe for leadership” includes a lot of focus on “oneness” and the happiness that comes when people (employees) feel part of the whole. It was an interesting presentation, if for no other reason than it was so different from the typical management consultant-speak you get at events like this.

Then came Margaret Wheatly, president of the Berkana Institute and author of Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time, among other titles. Wheatly focused on leadership in today’s tough and turbulent global environment.

She lists her four principles of leadership (which she says leaders need to tattoo on their arms):

• People only support what they help create.
• People only act responsibly when they care.
• Everyone is an expert about their own context.
• To create health, you need to create more connections.

She adds that people contribute their best when:

• They care about the work.
• They are free to make decisions in the moment.
• They have good relationships.
• They are trusted, and trusting.

–John Hollon

Aztec Well Servicing Co. employees were encouraged to ride together to their eight-hour shifts because specific kinds of vehicles were required to access the work sites. Because of safety procedures and limited parking, it was easier for an entire crew to access work sites together.

The employees argued that they were entitled to overtime for their commuting time because they met at a company-designated location, brought safety equipment and paperwork with them, purchased food and beverages for their shift at the convenience store where they met, and often talked about work-related matters during their commuting time in the car.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Denver held that the Portal-to-Portal Act, which is part of the Fair Labor Standards Act, did not require that these employees be paid for the time they spent commuting because they were permitted to eat, sleep, listen to the radio or choose not to participate in the car pool. According to the court, commuting is only covered by the federal overtime law if the travel is an integral and indispensable part of the employee’s principal activities. Smith v. Aztec Well Servicing Co., 10th Cir., No.04-2153 (9/12/06).

Impact: Employees who are required to carry their safety equipment during their commuting to and from work, obtain food and drinks for their shifts, and discuss their jobs during their commuting are not necessarily performing integral and indispensable “principal activities” warranting overtime pay.

The stock option backdating scandal has cost the more than 150 companies involved so far more than $10 billion in lost market value and additional compensation costs, according to a recent report.

Glass Lewis & Co., a research firm that advises institutional investors how to vote on proxy matters, said in a report released Monday, October 23, that 152 companies have so far disclosed internal or government investigations into backdating, Including of Monster Worldwide.

On Wednesday, October 25, Monster–which owns the leading job board Web site–said it would restate nine years of financial results to correct stock option expenses. Monster’s stock price reached nearly $60 in early May, but the shares now fetch less than $40.

The overall options scandal has caused companies to shed $5.1 billion of market value and forced them to recognize an extra $5.2 billion of pretax compensation expenses.

At least 44 executives and directors have been fired or resigned, the report said.

Those who have left include Andrew McKelvey, founder and former CEO of Monster Worldwide Inc. McKelvey stepped aside this month to devote his attention to investigations by the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission into his company’s option-granting practices.

—Aaron Elstein

Aaron Elstein is a senior reporter covering Wall Street for Crain’s New York Business, a sister publication of Workforce Management.

Dear Hate Losing Them:



No. 1: You cannot buy loyalty, so forget matching competing offers. Once an employee has decided to leave, the emotional bond is broken. Your first step is to begin the diagnosis. Are you conducting exit interviews? If not, consider hiring an outside service–professionals, not telemarketers–to ask questions that will yield honest, candid answers about why people are leaving.

Step two involves conducting a survey of remaining employees. Again, it’s better to hire professionals from outside the firm. Don’t try to do this in-house, as employees may not feel the level of trust required to give you meaningful feedback. Although you may be in a highly competitive market, you need to understand how employees perceive the experience of working for your company. Is it something they value?

This knowledge should provide a clearer picture of how your work environment is creating conditions that prompt–perhaps even encourage–people to leave for other jobs. Your job: Develop strategies that strengthen your defenses and make deliberate improvements to become a less toxic, more attractive employer.

Bonus hint: Employee retention is a management responsibility, not a human resources responsibility. Do your managers understand their retention role? Are they trained and equipped to perform it? You’ll need to get at the root of these questions too.

SOURCE: Roger E. Herman, the Herman Group, author of Keeping Good People, Greensboro, North Carolina, January 22, 2006.

LEARN MORE: Please read another viewpoint that argues companies should influence which employees leave and when.

The information contained in this article is intended to provide useful information on the topic covered, but should not be construed as legal advice or a legal opinion. Also remember that state laws may differ from the federal law.

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Dear Workforce Newsletter

Dear Bearing Bad News:



Instead of looking at this as a firing decision, view it as a hiring decision. In other words, use this as an opportunity to redesign work, increase employee and customer satisfaction, and select the most qualified people. This makes the process becomes more positive and effective. The negative emotions that surround downsizing help no one.

Start with a clean piece of paper and list all the tasks that need to be done once the downsizing is accomplished. Begin with the results you want, and then list the tasks that must be completed to ensure those results. A thoughtful review of what the customer truly values helps you eliminate non-value-added work that creeps into jobs over time.

Think through each necessary task and estimate the actual time necessary to do it in a quality manner. This activity will help you more effectively communicate which tasks your staff no longer will be able to complete. The reality of any significant downsizing is that some work you currently accomplish must be eliminated. Failing to properly identify and communicate these changes is one of the best ways to end up in a no-win position: less staff and the same workload.

Once you know which tasks remain and how much time each will take, you should design new positions that make sense given these needs. The requirements, skills and experience necessary for each job will flow from the work that must be completed.

If the downsizing has been announced, you may find it helpful to engage current employees in the selection process. Ask each potential candidate to prepare a specific, point-by-point document that details their demonstrated successes and experience with each major job task. Asking employees to self-identify their abilities, rather than just their interest in a position, may result in some candidates voluntarily opting out of the selection process.

If the downsizing must be planned without input from employees, look at performance reviews and other measurements that relate to the specific tasks for each new position to justify your selections. Remember, selections must make sense to you, your superiors and the affected employees. Good performance data describes previous successes and predicts the likelihood of future ones.

If everything else is relatively equal, I typically would keep employees with the most seniority. Employees who have a longer-term commitment likely are more willing to work through these changes if they are for the good of the company.

SOURCE: Richard D. Galbreath, Performance Growth Partners Inc., Bloomington, Illinois, January 30, 2006.

LEARN MORE: Some ideas for inspiring employees when downsizing. Also, 13 Alternatives to Downsizing gives HR directors food for thought. Link to about 75 other items about downsizing.

The information contained in this article is intended to provide useful information on the topic covered, but should not be construed as legal advice or a legal opinion. Also remember that state laws may differ from the federal law.

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Dear Workforce Newsletter

Executives from among the largest employers in northwest Nevada met at John Ascuaga’s Nugget Casino Resort near Reno earlier this month to figure out how to make smarter bets with their health care dollars and put an end to rising medical costs.

It hardly sounds like breaking news. But what was unique about the October 12 meeting—and possibly a portent of things to come nationwide—was that the usual health care stakeholders of hospitals, including insurance companies and such vendors as pharmacy benefit managers and major health benefits consultants, were not invited.

Only those footing the bill for health care—public and private employers—were allowed to attend to learn what’s needed to make sure the health care they are funding is both high-quality and cost-effective.

“The time for holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya’ is over,” says Brian Klepper, president of the Jacksonville, Florida-based Center for Practical Health Reform and a speaker at the meeting, which was organized by the Reno-based Nevada Health Care Coalition. “We recognized it was time to put together a meeting that was just payers, not providers.”

Many advocates for health system change argue that medical industry has not, on its own or in collaboration with employers, adequately addressed high health care costs and related issues such as preventable medical errors. Klepper, among others, says employers should use their market power to demand improvements in cost and quality by transforming the way doctors and hospitals get paid for their services.

The meeting was the first of a larger effort to get executives from regional employers to work with other employers to control health care costs for businesses.

“It is really important for people in the C-suite to show visual leadership on this, so that it is not just an HR thing, it is a business leadership thing that is important for everybody in the community,” Klepper says, who spoke after the meeting during a telephone interview. 

In the two-hour meeting, which was closed to the media, Klepper says he laid out what he calls “the conceptual framework” of today’s health care system. First, doctors and hospitals are not paid to provide cost-effective high-quality medical care, he says. They are paid either for each service they provide or, in the case of capitation, a lump sum for each patient, allowing them to pocket the money left over after care is given. Either way, care is not compensated based on quality, Klepper says. Second, employers have not used their claims data to hold doctors and hospitals accountable for the kind of service they provide.

Jerry Reeves, a pediatric oncologist, spoke about the value of using claims data to evaluate the cost and quality of medical providers in the region. Doing so can help create networks of high-performing doctors. This is something Reeves, former medical officer for insurance company Humana, has done as the chief medical officer for unionized hotel and restaurant employees in Las Vegas.

The meeting was intended to increase the Nevada Health Care Coalition’s pool of medical claims from 30,000 lives to 100,000 lives, a number that would total about 25 percent of the population in northwestern Nevada.

“That is significant,” says Michael Ginder, the coalition’s executive director. Ginder also spoke by telephone with Workforce Management after the meeting.  A large data pool would allow the group to examine how the cost of medical treatment varies among providers, how different benefit plan designs increase the use of drugs for chronic diseases like diabetes, and the difference in the quality and cost of care of hospitals and doctors. Ginder says data is the key to forcing change; and collecting the data requires a collaborative effort among employers.

Medical providers “start acting differently once you have the data,” Ginder says.

Employers that band together can use their market power as purchasers of health care to pressure hospitals and doctors to improve their services, he says.

“We have to assume that these doctors are well-trained and can diagnose and treat effectively,” Ginder says. “But they have to understand the cost implications.”

—Jeremy Smerd

A ruling by the National Labor Relations Board this month that outlined the definition of a supervisor is unlikely to be the final word in a matter that has vexed employers, unions and courts for more than two decades.

The decision, which may make it easier for companies to classify millions more workers as management and therefore be ineligible for collective bargaining, angered union representatives. They’re likely to appeal in a circuit court.

A permanent resolution may depend on Congress changing the legislation that has governed unionization since 1947. That legislation defines a supervisor as anyone who has the authority to “hire, transfer, assign … or responsibly to direct” other employees.

It’s the assigning and directing that were at the heart of the NLRB decision. The panel held that permanent charge nurses at Oakwood Heritage Hospital in Michigan should be designated as supervisors because they assigned patients to other nurses, influenced their work hours, were responsible for their performance and exercised independent judgment.

In two related cases, however, the board found that nurses at Golden Crest Healthcare Center in Minnesota and lead workers at Croft Metals Inc. in Mississippi did not meet the Oakwood test.

Unions asserted that under the NLRB parameter, a nurse who spends as little as 15 percent to 20 percent of his or her time in the charge role could be considered a supervisor.

Congress may have to sort it out. “Serious consideration ought to be given to amending the statute,” says Sarah Fox, a lawyer and former NLRB member.

The NLRB used the three cases to respond to a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in NLRB v. Kentucky River Community Care Inc. In that action, the high court rejected the board’s reasoning when it upheld a union request to include six registered nurses in a bargaining unit.

“Employers should be satisfied because they have more clarity in what (responsibility) to give to individuals if they wish them to be a supervisor,” says James Redeker, chair of employment services at WolfBlock, a Philadelphia law firm. AFL-CIO president John Sweeney said in a statement that the NLRB decision was the latest step by the Bush administration “to deny as many workers as possible their basic right to have a voice on the job and improve their living standards through their union.”

The three Republican appointees to the board voted in favor of the supervisor definition. The two members backed by Democrats dissented, writing that the decision threatened to create a class of workers who “have neither the genuine prerogatives of management, nor the statutory rights of ordinary employees.” Peter Kirsanow, who was appointed to the NLRB by President Bush in January, maintains that the board is not overtly political.

“There’s an effort to incorporate the views of everyone before you come to a conclusion on a particular case,” he said in an April interview.

The NLRB ruling could have a wide impact. Computer scientists, engineers and other skilled employees could be defined as supervisors in today’s collaborative offices.

“It’s all about pushing authority down to frontline workers,” Fox says.

—Mark Schoeff Jr.

Donna Leonard, a sales manager for Rainbow Play Systems, implemented a dress code requiring men to purchase and wear denim shirts with the company’s logo and women to purchase and wear navy blazers over polo shirts. In implementing this policy, Leonard said that women needed “to cover up their boobs” and “rear ends.” Michelle Rohaly was fired from her job as a saleswoman when she refused to purchase and wear a navy blazer.

Rohaly sued under Title VII and claimed that the dress code was discriminatory against women. The company argued that the dress code was not discriminatory because it required all employees to purchase specific types of clothing and imposed financial burdens on both sexes.

The Washington State Court of Appeals reversed summary judgment for Rainbow Play Systems because Leonard’s sexist comments evidenced that sex may have played a role in the decision to implement the dress code. Therefore, the dress code policy might constitute disparate treatment on the basis of sex. Michelle Rohaly v. Rainbow Playground Depot Inc., Wash. Ct. App., No. 56478, No. 56478-1-I (8/28/06).

Impact: Because one manager’s sexist comments could show that the company’s reasons for its policy are a pretext, employers should consider periodic training of managers and supervisors about how they conduct themselves in equal employment opportunity matters.

A new report conducted by the Communications Workers of America and worker organizations in India shows that being a call center rep in India might not be all that it’s cracked up to be.

As more multinational companies have moved call-center work to India in recent years, they have portrayed these jobs as high-paying, well-respected professional positions for India’s workers.

That might be true, but these workers are under much more stress than their U.S. counterparts, according to the report, titled “Bi-National Perspective on Offshore Outsourcing: A Collaboration Between Indian and U.S. Labour.”

The report’s publication highlights the direction that the Communications Workers of America is going as it attempts to stem the tide of employers moving call-center work to India, observers say. Multinational companies would be wise to pay attention to the arguments the report makes, says Gary Chaisson, a professor at Clark University.

The report, published Tuesday, October 17, is based on surveys of 230 Indian call center reps at Accenture, Convergys and Wipro. The Communications Workers of America worked with three Indian organizations to gather the information: the New Trade Union Initiative, the Young Professionals Collective and Jobs With Justice.

The surveys found that nearly 40 percent of call center workers are paid 15,000 rupees a month, or $318. Call center reps in India typically are 20 to 25 years old.

“This is a good salary for young Indian workers,” Anannya Bhattacharjee, international organizer for Jobs With Justice, said during a conference call about the report’s findings.

But the levels of stress that these workers are facing are very high, she said. Half of the respondents said they work overtime, with most of them working extra hours one to three days a week.

Often, call center reps in India are working 48 to 54 hours a week, according to the report.

The study gauged work intensity by measuring the number of calls an employee took each day and the total amount of time per day that a worker spent taking calls. Based on that formula, the study found that the average Indian call center employee serves 180 customers per day, compared with 75 customers per day for U.S. call center reps.

As a result, these employees are facing a worker intensity level of 81 percent to 84 percent, far above the 50 percent that the authors deem as “reasonable.”

At one of the firms where work intensity averaged 80 percent, more than 70 percent of the call center reps say they would welcome union representation, Bhattacharjee says.

“This report shows that there is a need for unions in the call centers,” says Vinod Shetty, secretary of the Young Professionals Collective, an India-based group focused on organizing call center workers in India. “The general impression has been that these workers are unpaid, but this report shows that there is a need among the workers for a union.”

The Communications Workers of America and other groups plan to use the report to raise awareness around the working conditions of India’s call center representatives, says Annie Hill, vice president of the CWA.

“Call center workers in India, the U.S. and other countries are facing similar problems,” she says. “Workers are up against employers who only want to pay the lowest possible labor cost no matter what the work is.”

—Jessica Marquez

A group backed by some of the nation’s largest employers has published its first rankings of the country’s top hospitals for patient safety in a survey that also highlights major gaps in patient safety.

More than 1,200 of the approximately 5,500 hospitals nationwide responded to the survey conducted by the Leapfrog Group, an employer-led coalition founded in 2000 by the Business Roundtable. The group, whose members include General Electric, GM, IBM and Boeing, developed a list of 30 “safe practices” it says hospitals should follow to reduce preventable hospital errors.

Employers have become increasingly concerned over the amount of money they waste on hospitals where not enough is done to prevent life threatening, costly medical errors.

If non-rural hospitals in the U.S. followed the group’s safety guidelines, such as physicians’ use of computers to avoid mistakes resulting from illegibly or incorrectly written prescriptions, the lives of 65,000 people could be saved annually, the groups says. The U.S. health care system would in turn save $41.5 billion annually, savings that would eventually come back to employers.

The safest hospital, by Leapfrog’s standards, is Akron General Medical Center in Ohio. The also list includes such notable hospitals as Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston (No. 5) and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles (No. 7.) The top-ranked children’s hospital is Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

Among the positive findings by the group: Ninety percent of hospitals have procedures in place to avoid operating on the wrong part of a patient’s body, and 80 percent of hospitals require a pharmacist to review medication orders before medicine is given to patients.

But the hospitals failed to implement a number of other safety measures, the study reports. More than 90 percent of hospitals do not use computers to enter physicians’ orders. Nearly all hospitals failed to meet the standards for performing two high-risk surgeries: coronary artery bypass surgery and abdominal aortic aneurysm repair.

Half of the hospitals do not have procedures to make sure the hospital has enough nurses. Thirty percent do not meet the group’s standards for preventing malnutrition in patients, and a similar percentage of hospitals do not vaccinate their health care workers against the flu.

The hospitals in the report serve 56 percent of Americans, but some of the most prestigious hospitals in major cities chose not to participate. Chicago’s two most prestigious hospitals, the University of Chicago Hospitals and the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago, did not participate; nor did the region’s largest public hospital, Cook County Hospital.

“It’s unfortunate that they haven’t released their progress on meeting patient safety measures,” says Larry Boress, resident of the Midwest Business Group on Health, whose organization is a Leapfrog Group member.

A spokesman for the University of Chicago Hospitals, John Easton, said the hospital did not participate because its $70 million computerized physician order entry system, a five-year project designed to prevent prescription errors, was not yet complete. The hospital system would likely participate next year.

Though the patient safety measures are supported by purchasers of health care, including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the largest single purchaser of health care in the country, hospitals have openly worried that the measures developed from health-services research studies do not translate well into real-world medical situations.

Hospitals have also said labor shortages facing the nursing industry and the overall high expense of compliance make it difficult to follow the Leapfrog Group’s voluntary safe-practices guidelines.

Boress says 60 percent of hospitals in Illinois did not participate in the survey. In the 31 regions of the U.S. where Leapfrog targets hospitals for participation, 56 percent of urban, general acute-care hospitals responded.

Leapfrog Group plans to continue its survey on an annual basis.

—Jeremy Smerd